Thread: Escher vs Jnat for finishing

Jnat for me, have both.

IME remembering my honing curve, if it feels too sharp, it isn't sharp enough, if it feels smooth and shaves closely, it is sharp enough.

Cheers, Steve

My experience.
An Escher cannot produce an edge as sharp or as smooth as my Jnat.

The term Escher is somewhat generic as far as hones go but there are so many variations of 'JNats' that a true comparison seems all but impossible.

Yess, tere are variations....but i belive the fine gentlemen who started the post was thinking of something like the creame of the eschers vs the cream of the jnats)


anyway...i've been trough @ 14 eschers ...just recived a 20 inch labled Y-G yesterday...
and about 50-60 jants....so i'm starting to understand the difrences...

If you want a straight forward finisher that's not too complicated and leaves one of the mos forgiving edges on Planet Earth...go for an Escher...a good Y-G one....

Sure it wont HHT like a JNAT...it wont ne samuray sharp.....maybe not even as a high end coticule...coticule....(you...high end coticules are finer than Eschers...sad but true....)
But damn it i cand do 3-4 passes or go ATG twice with that edge and still get no burn.
If that aint forgiveness i dont know what is!


Now with a Jnat....it's a whole diffrent...
It's a whole other love storry....
Good Jnats are hard...fast...and fine animals....
They get those bevels polished up nice and the edge fine....but you gotta know how to ride that edge....you cant go wild on it and do multiple passes ... or... blink....)

You realy have to be in sink with the edge because as smooth and as sharp as it is...it is unforgiving to mistakes...

So it is more a question of what knd of user you are rather then what you like...


If you have a sensitive skin that regenerates slowly...ingrown hairs...and a shaky hand) my best bet is you're gonna go for an Escher...

If you have skin that alows you to shave with a straigt daily...a steady hand and good technique...you're gonna love a fine jnat finish.

Oh...depending on what you want from a jnat you can finish on thicker slurry for a kinder edge...on plain water...or under running water if you realy want to squeeze that last drop of sharp out of it...

Eschers also can be tweeked in the same manner but the diffrence is smaller in what you can get compared to the diffrence in the JNAt finish.

Originally Posted by ovidiucotiga

Oh...depending on what you want from a jnat you can finish on thicker slurry for a kinder edge...on plain water...or under running water if you realy want to squeeze that last drop of sharp out of it...

bingo - you can do whatever you want with it. If you have a coticule that's good enough (I got a miracle coti last week, i'm wondering if it's even coti), you can do the same with it, but most cotis are more coarse and require an iterative sharpening process with a linen to get a truly sharp edge that has "that bite".

Eschers are good stones, but they're sort of like the Toyota Camry of razor stones. That's if someone tried to get $100,000 for a camry.

A good jnat is like getting a mercedes ute with toyota reliability for the price of a used camry.

It's kinda like apples and oranges right?
Comparing something that is notoriously uniform (Escher stones) for honing to something that is almost as notoriously variable (JNATs). My understanding is that you can definitely get a sharper and keener edge off the right JNAT, but you generally know what you're getting into with an Escher.
A more interesting question may be something with price constraints. i.e. Can I get a better finisher for my razors for <$400 by buying a Escher or a JNAT?

You can get an excellent jnat razor finisher for $100. Not a big yellow maruka stamped kiita finisher, but a 5 1/2x3 sized razor hone that will hone all of your razors for the rest of your life.

I get few true razor hones that don't match an escher, but even if they only did that, they're bigger and a fraction of the cost.

By the way, I think there are two classes of "good" razor finishers in jnat. They are fine and slow, or a bit faster (and not as fine). There is no magic stone that is super fine and super fast in the sense of synthetics being super fine and super fast - they (jnats) are mostly silica abrasive.

For people who are obsessed with synthetics, that sounds like a downgrade, but it's not. The fact that they're mostly silica gives you control over the abrasive that you don't have with synthetics. You can use a stone aggressively, or you can get the abrasive to do more polishing if the stone doesn't shed particles fast. With a synthetic, you can't get that kind of range - you can use them differently and keep them from being lapped if they're hard enough, but they load instead of slowing down. Not the same thing, the alumina is just too tough to be broken in quickly.

The other thing wonderful about some of the silica and silica-ish abrasives is that they are right around the same hardness as hardened steel. You can bank on getting a very hard razor to be mostly polished on naturals if running them on clear, and if you have softer razors (like friodurs) you can bank on the stone cutting them pretty quickly.

In my opinion, the fast and brash hones are not for beginners. The former type (the very fine but slower cutting on water) are inexpensive and you can't overhone on them. If you need them to cut quickly, you just pair a nagura with them. Something like Meijiro and tomo will be all the range you need for everything except bevel setting.

I have some microscope pictures that I've been taking of various hones. The difference is less than I expected when you focus on the edge. I'll post them elsewhere at some point.

What I've learned is that the difference in the truly razor grade jnats (and every one is different) is really in learning what the stone likes. All of them will finish to a very keen edge on weight of the razor finishing, good enough that they don't need linen (some cotis do) for the first shave to be comfortable, and searching for the perfect one is like playing guitar against chet atkins and focusing on tone. You can search all you want for the perfect guitar and amp, but chet will still sound better until or unless you get as good as he was at guitar.

Alex and Max both sell Shobu Type 100 (Type 100 is a size, about 6x2") for around $60. Alex will sell you a fine but non-fancy larger stone at a reasonable price. The knife maker Takeda used to sell Nakayama koppas for $89, I've got three and all are great razor hones. If you're talking Escher prices, your jnat options are pretty much unlimited until you get to bench size collector stones.

What you're looking for is a stone that's pretty hard - right up to the point of being difficult to slurry - but is finer than it's hardness would suggest. They're out there, but they're rarer than most folks think. If you're talking to a dealer, ask for a hard deep strata Nakayama then see what's offered.

I agree that you need to learn the stone, including finding a good tomo for it. But there's a lot less learning needed for a superior stone than a marginal one.

Cheers, Steve

Sometimes finding a good tomo forna good stone means cutting up antother good stone....

The funny thing with good tomo naguras is they dont grow on trees...funny and sad at the same time...

Japanese used to cut smaller good quality pieces into naguras....westeners....ddont....

These days boxed or stamped tomo naguras are a rarity...
So most tomos come from cutting up other stones outside of Japan...

Now the question is...what stone would you cut for tomo naguras?


That's why my go to tomo nagura is an EZ-Lap 26F...I have it for @6 years now...
It has shed it's last free grit years ago but still cuts well and has become much finer@1k now after all these years of use.

I wouldnt trade it for any tomo...it's all the tomos I need in one

I do have asano sets and a few tomos...but I rarely use them these days...